Focused Feedback: Stone Armor - Revamp and Proliferation

[arcane]

3 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

That’s definitely going to change.

 

 

Excellent work, Captain.

The cool players already made Graniteless tanks after the Rooted change though 😉

[Booper]

15 hours ago, InvaderStych said:

I'd also love to see what info @Booper and Company would be willing to share with the class about Brimstone's dmg proc.

 

Some anecdotal stuff

 

Up to 3 ticks in 1s intervals, 80% chance that cancels on miss.

 

Tick damage scale is 0.2 x min(Cast Time, 3) / AreaFactor 

 

If the base range of the power is 20+ feet, the Ranged_Damage scale is used. Less than 20 feet uses Melee_Damage scale.

 

Brutes apply another multiplier to damage ticks: 1 + Fury. At 100% Fury, it is double damage. At 50% Fury it is 1.5x damage.

 

Scrappers can get critical hits that do scale 0.6 x min(Cast Time, 3)/AreaFactor of upfront damage. 

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

The cool players already made Graniteless tanks after the Rooted change though 😉

Oh, mine is sitting at Level One with its entire IO build ready to go since that update, it just hasn’t made the play queue yet.

[Burnt Umber]

Having played around with a Stone Armor tank, I have the following observations:

 

1. Stone Skin is a really good passive now.  Moving some of the defense from Granite and expanding its resist types makes the power less of a set mule power pick as well as a sensible/thematic power.

 

2.  Moving Crystal Armor to earlier in the set is much appreciated.  Given that energy and negative energy start appearing early on (particularly Clockwork), it's nice to have once storylines start to throw it at you regularly.

 

3.  Giving Crystal  Armor a +recovery buff is less appreciated.  I realize that getting a sizable +recovery buff is very useful at level 12 (tanks) or 20 (everyone else), but  I feel as though a to-hit debuff resist would be better thematically and more useful is a character's long term life.  For example, CoT ghosts or Tsoo Sorcerers would be much less of a hassle when you start encountering them with such a buff.

 

4. Minerals and Brimstone Armors might want their respective level selection switched.  With the exception of Praetorian Seers and certain Arachnos mobs, psychic damage doesn't appear regularly until maybe the 30s so getting Minerals by a character's 20s seems a bit of gun-jumping.  Furthermore, putting Brimstone so late in the set makes it less useful besides for the damage proc. of the power.

 

5.  Brimstone Armor should probably be changed from a resistance armor to a defensive one.  I realize that would break the cottage rule, but it's always bugged me that a defensive set arbitrarily had a fire/cold hole by having those types being resisted rather than avoided.

 

Overall, I really like the changes and how they make my own non-granite tank more normal and less of a crazy oddity.

[Riverdusk]

9 hours ago, JayboH said:

Hell yes!

 

Scrappers get completely screwed when it comes to damage auras when compared to the other two melee classes that tend to get them.  Brutes get fury damage, tanks get 50% larger AOEs.  Scrappers?  Scrappers get nothing, no crits at all, making them get the worst melee damage auras possible, which does not seem right since they have lower survivability.

 

Not to mention the scrapper's lack of taunt aura in them to help actually keep enemies in the damage aura.   I do like that mud pots comes with a slow and a mag 2 immobilize, to help with that issue thankfully.  

[JayboH]

1 hour ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Not to mention the scrapper's lack of taunt aura in them to help actually keep enemies in the damage aura.   I do like that mud pots comes with a slow and a mag 2 immobilize, to help with that issue thankfully.  

I doubt that will ever change as annoying as that is, and maybe it is for the best, so they don't out-aggro the other two classes.

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, JayboH said:

I doubt that will ever change as annoying as that is, and maybe it is for the best, so they don't out-aggro the other two classes.

If anything they should remove the aggro auras from the scrappers that have them.

 

Scrappers exist, in my opinion, so that somebody who wants to play melee DPS but be neither tank nor rogue has an option.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Wavicle

[Bill Z Bubba]

41 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

but be neither tank nor rogue

 

Did you mean brute?

[arcane]

42 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

If anything they should remove the aggro auras from the scrappers that have them.

Agreed

[Riverdusk]

33 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

If anything they should remove the aggro auras from the scrappers that have them.

 

 

 

Well, thankfully devs have already said they have no plans to do so, just that any new armorsets (like this one) won't have one.   This one I'm willing to give a chance to as it has an immoblize/slow to at least help mitigate the annoyance of mobs scattering and running away willy nilly.   

 

Actually sorry I brought it up, don't want to derail the thread with that dead horse of an issue.  🙂

[Wavicle]

55 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Well, thankfully devs have already said they have no plans to do so, just that any new armorsets (like this one) won't have one.   This one I'm willing to give a chance to as it has an immoblize/slow to at least help mitigate the annoyance of mobs scattering and running away willy nilly.   

 

Actually sorry I brought it up, don't want to derail the thread with that dead horse of an issue.  🙂

 

I'm not actually advocating their removal. I'm fine with there being a few scrappers with aggro auras, just like there's one controller with no pet, several blasters without snipes, a few buff sets that deal damage, and so on. Some variety is good.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Wavicle

[Bill Z Bubba]

Random notes:

 

One pylon, 2:25 with claws/stone scrapper on beta. About to hop into max diff ITF with ageless radial to see how that goes.

Ooops. Forgot Master of now turns off incarnate powers.

Having them flee mud pots increases mitigation quite a bit.

Perma scrapper HP cap, Geode is a get out of debt free card. (Or was before I was too slow to click it when I aggroed 2 spawns.) Could probably go leadership instead of fighting pool.

It's a very nice set redo. It doesn't feel OP at this time but that may change when I can see it in Mids and tweak it properly. The min fx are also great. Yea, I'll play this when it hits live.

 

Wonder how Green Dwarf is going to deal with the changes for his tank.

 

[Myrmidon]

6 hours ago, Wavicle said:

If anything they should remove the aggro auras from the scrappers that have them.

The only way that would work would be to change their aggro auras into the Sentinel equivalent, otherwise, none of those sets would function properly.

[Wavicle]

5 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

The only way that would work would be to change their aggro auras into the Sentinel equivalent, otherwise, none of those sets would function properly.

Yea, I don’t think they ought to be changed. It’s only like 4 or 5 sets out of all of them.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Wavicle

[Ice Ember]

15 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

Oh, mine is sitting at Level One with its entire IO build ready to go since that update, it just hasn’t made the play queue yet.

 

I almost remade Lord Pingtard, but opted for a stone/spines instead.

[Penguin]

Tried a Stone/Stone Scrapper, got to level 12 through street sweeping in Atlas and running Hollows arcs. Seems to be a good armor set so far on the AT, but Earth's Embrace feels like the heal is too weak. I think it should be increased at least some.

On another note: I have a Stone/SS tank that really appreciates the changes, other than Earth's Embrace having too weak of a heal now.

As for the minimal setting for the powers: I love them! They seem really well done, I particularly appreciate the Rooted minimal. I'm not sure how difficult it is, or if it's being worked on, but I would definitely appreciate a non-model swap option for Granite Armor.

For Brutes: is it really appropriate for their version of Granite Armor to have the same magnitude of penalties, despite the reduced effectiveness compared to the Tanker version?

For Rooted and Granite: I feel like it would be a good change to simply scrap the movement penalty from Rooted altogether. Getting rid of it entirely would be welcome for emergency switches.

Overall, I think the revamp and proliferation are very well done.

(I apologize if I poorly structured this post, or put too many thoughts at once into it.)

Edited November 13, 2021 by Penguin
Added thoughts on Brute Granite and Rooted with Granite

[BrandX]

Geode should have a taunt aura *nod nod*

[Errants]

23 hours ago, BrandX said:

Geode should have a taunt aura *nod nod*

YES!

[BrandX]

15 minutes ago, Errants said:

YES!

 

Seeing as how it's destructible, it felt like they should be on you trying to destroy it.

[Golden Azrael]

In the more discrete Tanker power customisation?  No option to change the stone brick Tier 9 to a Crystal humanoid instead?  (You can do this for the Stoney Pet for Domiantors/Trollers...)

 

I like the less obtrusive crystal/stone armour options.  But the Tier 9?

 

The shoulder pads crystals are a bit 'American Football.'  I suppose I could get used to them.

 

Azrael.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Golden Azrael

[hejtmane]

On 11/9/2021 at 11:21 PM, Wavicle said:

Yea, I don’t think they ought to be changed. It’s only like 4 or 5 sets out of all of them.

Six sets with a taunt aura the original being invulnerability all the way back to I1

Shield

Will Power

Bio armor

Invulnerability

Energy Aura

Radiation Armor and if they pull it from the old sets I just quit the game or move to one of the other Free to play games

 

My only suggestion is to remove it and turn the single taunt in the primaries as a taunt aura then anyone can have one and it is no longer based on secondary and is skippable

 

 

Edited November 14, 2021 by hejtmane

[Microcosm]

On 11/13/2021 at 7:49 PM, BrandX said:

 

Seeing as how it's destructible, it felt like they should be on you trying to destroy it.

A taunt with a large pbaoe explosion when destroyed, instead of the buffs it grants. I really like the proliferation, but Geode feels quite strange to me as a defensive/offensive power. I'm really not sure I like it in its current form, and this is coming from someone who takes Hibernate on almost every Scrapper.

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, Microcosm said:

A taunt with a large pbaoe explosion when destroyed, instead of the buffs it grants. I really like the proliferation, but Geode feels quite strange to me as a defensive/offensive power. I'm really not sure I like it in its current form, and this is coming from someone who takes Hibernate on almost every Scrapper.

 

I never looked to see if one continued to do damage when used (Mud Pots), or if it just gives the buff.  Wouldn't mind the PBAOE damage explosion added to it for effect, but with it being breakable it just seemed like a good call for enemies to go "Take her now before she recovers!" 🙂

[InvaderStych]

7 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

I never looked to see if one continued to do damage when used (Mud Pots), or if it just gives the buff.  Wouldn't mind the PBAOE damage explosion added to it for effect, but with it being breakable it just seemed like a good call for enemies to go "Take her now before she recovers!" 🙂

 

It doesn't, though the immobilize effect still triggers in combat logs, and proc dmg still occurs occasionally, although at what seems to be a reduced rate. I thought I saw a very rare, 1-2pt dmg tick from MudPots bleed through while in Geode, but I couldn't repeat it so I figured it was just me mis-reading something in the scroll.

 

Irradiated Ground, because it is a funky pet thing does continue to function while in Geode, again with procs firing at what seems to be a reduced rate from normal.

 

I want to emphasize seems to be again because that's all from just observation and I didn't actually pull any logs to examine closely.

 

The other thing about Geode is that occasionally it gets destroyed in very short order.  I've been running Jenkins' Infernal/Portal mission just as an easy thing to try different /Stone combos with, at one point I used it while making contact with the portal and it was destroyed almost instantly. I thought it might have been a bug but it was just a big burst of incoming dmg.  Same mission at +4x8 and the pet only lasts a few seconds against a full group from time to time.  Having it explode as a pbAoE is actually a really good idea; trying to stay in it for 30s for the full Brimstone buff is going to be a big of a challenge.

 

I do greatly enjoy that it changes appearance as it takes damage.  That's a very nice touch! 👍

 

 

Edit: Has anyone been able to determine in Brimstone's chance to Crit is affected by Scrapper ATOs?

Edited November 15, 2021 by InvaderStych

[Riverdusk]

According to the in-game power info Geode does have a taunt:

"+300.00%% taunt for 27h 46m on target"

 

But it also seems to have a taunt debuff:

" -99900.00%% strength to taunt on target.  Ignores buffs and enhancements unresistable"

 

Probably just some funky mechanics they did to make it work that looks weird in the power info?